Another item that’s been on my to-sew list for ages has been covers for the two sewing machines and overlocker that live in my sewing room.  There’s a free pattern and instructions for these on the Closet Case Patterns website, which I used, but there are plenty of tutorials for making these on the internet and YouTube.

I cut and sewed a heap of piping from stretch denim and piping cord. Because the denim had stretch I cut the strips accordingly, rather than on the bias as you’d normally do it with a woven fabric. I made lots and lots of piping – but it’s surprising how much of it you use when making three covers!

The piping is important as it adds structure and helps the cover to hold it’s shape. I used corduroy for the covers that I’ve had in stash for some time – it’s a Prints Charming fabric, originally bought at Spotlight. I didn’t include side pockets in the machine covers. The overlocker cover isn’t deep enough when the thread guides are still attached, but it will suffice. Measure your machines before you cut out the fabric for the covers! I really like the three coordinating covers, but you can guess what’s happening in reality, can’t you? My machine and the overlocker are in use so much that the covers are rarely in place!

I’ve mentioned before that my Dad is rather handy, especially with timber.  Now that Dad is 86, he prefers smaller timber working projects to larger ones such as major pieces of furniture.  I suspected that he would be looking for a project to do while we were up visiting at Christmas time, so went searching for something appropriate – and found both photos and diagrams of point pressers and clappers, plus a pattern for a tailor’s board.

Okay, what is a point presser, a clapper, and a tailor’s board, I hear you ask? Well, they are all tailoring and pressing tools.

The tailor’s board, which is at the back of the above photo, is used for pressing points, pressing seams, pressing sleeves and sleeve heads, and generally helping you to get into hard to reach places that you just can’t press easily on the regular sized and shaped ironing board. There are actually a couple of excellent tutorials available online that explain how to use them. Dritz have one here, and there is a video tutorial by Nancy Zieman on youtube over here.

The clapper is the bottom part of the tool at the front of the photo above.  It is for pounding seams, and any other bulky edges.  After they have been steam pressed with the iron, clapping or pounding down on them with the clapper forces the moisture out and gives you flat seams and crisper edges.  It’s not something that you use all the time, as it depends on the fabric, but can ver a very handy tool.  It can be made just flat with a groove for holding it, or else with a handle.  And the handle can be made in the shape of a point presser, as Dad made for me.  So you’ve got the clapper underneath, which you can hold with the point presser, and you can use the point presser to do exactly that – press points, or press along other seams.  Angela Wolf has a video tutorial on how to use it here.

Another wonderful pressing tool is a sleeve board.

Dad made me this one a few years ago. I drew out a pattern on paper of what I was after, and he put it together. I then covered it with batting and a cover made from curtaining fabric, the sort with block-out on the back. This is the BEST thing for pressing sleeves, unsurprisingly. I use it often.

So by now I bet that you’re going to ask me where to get these or how to make them.  I have a few suggestions.  You can google them to find a local supplier or mail order supplier in your country.  You can make one yourself.  There are tutorials for how to make a clapper here and here.  Unfortunately the website for the pattern that Dad used for the tailor’s board appears to be down at the moment.  I’ll leave the link in anyway, because I have many thank you’s to the person at http://www.chance-of-rain.com for their pattern and instructions, and hopefully it will reappear at some stage.  I have found a link to the instructions through the wayback machine, but not a link to the pdf of the pattern.  The University of Kentucky have instructions for how to make a number of pressing tools – including a tailor’s board, tailor’s ham, clapper, pressing mitt and sleeve roll – over here!  Hooray!  There are also patterns available for sale here.  You could ask a handy person that you know to make one, or contact your local woodturner’s or woodworker’s group and see if anyone there could do it.  Many of them could work from photos and/or diagrams, and there are loads of those available if you do an image search on google for “tailor’s board” or “tailor’s clapper” or similar.

*stop press!  The Curious Kiwi has instructions on how to make both a sleeve board and a tailor’s board over here!  Thanks to Nicole and Jo for pointing that out – extremely helpful!

And obviously, if you are going to press as you sew – and you absolutely SHOULD – then you need an iron.

I currently use a Kogan steam iron, and love the huge water reservoir and the amount of steam that it pumps out.  A number of manufacturer’s make similar irons.  Everyone has different preferences in their irons, and it depends a little bit on how much ironing you do!  Between household ironing and sewing, I do plenty.  I like an iron with a decent amount of weight to it, one that puts out plenty of steam, and preferably one that turns off automatically if it hasn’t been used for a certain period of time.  This iron doesn’t have automatic switch off, so I do need to be careful to remember to turn it off myself.  It’s not hard to remember generally, as it continues to pour out steam and that reminds me!

Also, I’ve talked about my ironing board cover before, but I’ll mention it again while I’m talking about pressing.  It is a Fitz Like A Glove cover, from Interface Australia, as is over their felt underlay.  Their goods are not cheap, but they are absolutely high quality and last for a long, long time.  Service is always excellent when I have placed an order and everyone I know who has used their cover and underlay has been very happy with it.  Worth every cent.  While I’m at it, I’ll also just note that all my above comments are just consumer comments and reviews – I am not sponsored by either Kogan or Interface to mention their products!

There are other excellent pressing tools that really help to make your garments sew up successfully.  I use a Best Boy pressing cloth (also from Interface) and a silk organza pressing cloth when needed.  I also have a tailor’s ham and a pressing mitt.

Craftsy give a run-down of pressing tools here.  The Sewing Divas have a superb series on pressing here.  Colette discusses pressing tools here. And last, but definitely not least, Ann from Gorgeous Fabrics is also known as the Pressinatrix, and she has an excellent series of blog posts about pressing here – and a video to go with them!  You absolutely must read her series and watch the video if you are interesting in finding out about how pressing can improve your sewing.

And one last thing before I go.  Let me introduce you to Ada.

Ada is my new dress form, and she came to me at Christmas. She is an Adjustoform Lady Valet, and my husband found her at Sew Much Easier. (Meaning, I emailed him the link with extremely strong hints). She’s currently wound out to approximate my measurements, but will still need some additional padding and shaping in a few areas. I’m really looking forward to working with her!

I spent HOURS last week sorting my threads and zips.  I showed you the beginning of my thread sorting odyssey – here are the progress and conclusion snaps.

Thread sorting in progress – I found all my threads, those on racks, in boxes, in a cardboard box (not seen in the photo above – and started to sort according to colour. I decided to keep the larger reels on the freestanding rack, other than the white and black reels, which are now kept on the standing racks that are part of the sewing cabinet. Specialty threads such as quilting cotton, topstitching threads and so on – as well as special machine feet and other handy sewing notions – went into the large plastic box on the left of the above photo. And all of the 100m spools went into the containers from Aldi. At the end of a few hours, I had this:

Woo hoo! How organised and space efficient is THAT! I did a rough count, and there are over 400 spools. Oh my goodness! I think that this is going to be a very workable thread storage solution for me – but only time will tell. I still haven’t figured out the overlocker threads, but I have sorted the zips. There were some great suggestions on how to store zips, but what I had failed to mention was just HOW MANY zips there were to store. Hundreds. I spent a few hours sorting them by type – dress, jeans, metal open end, normal open end, chunky open end, invisible – and then sorted them by length, from 7 inches and less, through 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22 and 24 inches. Then each pile of zips went into a large clear plastic snaplock bag. I’m still considering how to best store the bags, but think that at least now when I need a zip I pull out the type and length that is needed, dump then all on the table then look for the best colour. And go up or down size wise if needed.

I haven’t done any sewing at all this week – sacrilege! – but am pleased to be getting some organisation done. There was also some fabric sorting, folding and storing.  Now my fingers are itching to get back to the machine. There are more than ten “immediate” projects in my to-do list at present!

I am a little shocked to confess that I haven’t sewed anything for a week!  I’ve still been hooking, but no garments, bags, or quilts have been attempted.  Hoping that my machine would soon become a creative space again, I sorted out my sewing machine feet.

Do you have that number of machine feet? Maybe you have more! Notice that they are displayed on the beautiful new insert I had made for my Horn sewing machine cabinet. It’s to compensate for the lack of a fancy pants modern new sewing machine, and in conjunction with some new quilting feet I think it will all work fine for free motion quilting (at much smaller outlay).

This one is a walking foot. Love it! The Brother foot seems to work quite nicely on my Pinnock, and makes quilting and sewing thick layers that little bit easier. Apparently it is also good for sewing slippery fabrics, so I must file that information away for future reference.

These are both darning feet, used for free motion embroidery and quilting. I bought the one on the left after doing Kellie’s workshop at Sewjourn – it’s just that little bit easier to see what you are doing with the larger metal opening and avoids the distortion I was getting with the clear foot. Neither of these came with my machine – I think the clear foot is for Brother machines and the metal open-toe foot is a generic one I found on eBay.

And these ones? The one on the machine is the standard foot that came with it. Then from left to right we have:

• 4-step buttonhole foot – I’m pretty good at using this now but would adore a new machine that did a few fancy buttonholes in one step
• blind hemming foot – well, I think it is! I hardly ever use this one, but it came with the machine. I should practice.
• clear presser foot – this one came with the machine too, and I don’t think I’ve ever used it.
• zipper foot – the original one that came with my machine vanished some time last year (I suspect that Stella had something to do with it) so I replaced it with this. I use zipper feet a lot.
• invisible zipper foot – a recent purchase that has made invisible zipper insertion just perfect! Well worth it.
• teflon foot – fantastic for sewing clear vinyl and any other fabric that could be a bit “sticky”
• quarter-inch foot – up until now I have done all my patchwork piecing without a quarter inch foot. I know my machine very well and pretty much just know where a quarter of an inch is on the plate when using the standard foot. I haven’t used this one yet and will be interested to see if I find it makes much of a difference.
• gathering foot – a generous blogger gave me this when it didn’t fit her machine. I need to play with it myself and see just how much it can do!

So, do you have many sewing machine feet in your creative space? Are there others that you consider to be “must haves”?

Pop over and visit Kirsty for some more creative spaces!

It’s Sewing Machine Month over at Sew, Mama, Sew! and they want to hear all about our sewing machines!  Funnily enough, this is a topic very relevant to me since this blog seems to have become a bit of a central point for people looking for instructions or information on Pinnock sewing machines.  I get an enormous number of hits when people search for “Pinnock”!  Sadly for most of them, I’m not much help because my machine isn’t anywhere near as old as theirs.  But enough about that, the lowdown!

What brand and model do you have?

It’s a Pinnock Exclusiv Plus, and it states proudly on the front that it is made in West Germany.  This was a present for my 21st birthday, so it dates to around 1989.

How long have you had it?

Oh, I just answered that in the previous question!  It’s from around 1989 – so I’ve had it for twenty years.

How much does that machine cost (approximately)?

I bet that if I asked Mum she’d remember what she paid for it.  It was a mid-range machine at the time.  Prior to getting this I sewed on Mum’s Husquvarna which dated back to the 70s (which she’s only just replaced this year).

What types of things do you sew (i.e. quilting, clothing, handbags, home dec projects, etc.)?

I sew all types of things!  Primarily clothing, primarily woven fabrics, but now I also quilt and I sew loads of handbags.  I also sew stretch fabrics with it (I did a KnitWit course back in my early 20s).

How much do you sew? How much wear and tear does the machine get?

I sew A LOT.  Not professionally, but it’s still a lot.  This machine has been going strong for twenty years.  I reckon that I’d sew for an average of around five hours most weeks, but often more.  Often way more!  I try to get the machine serviced each year.

Do you like/love/hate your machine? Are you ambivalent? Passionate? Does she have a name?

I have really loved my machine – I’ve been using it so long that I could almost sew using it with my eyes shut.  I know where everything is, and all its quirks.  But I am looking to replace her…

What features does your machine have that work well for you?

This machine has lots of good features.  It’s strong, has a good variety of stitches, and seems to handle most fabrics without much trouble.  It’s got all the standard stitches and lots of specialty ones, and came with a number of specialty feet (although I’ve recently bought a few more).  That said, I’ve worked out what additional features I’d like to have in a new machine.

Is there anything that drives you nuts about your machine?

No!  That’s a bit of a surprise.  Maybe because I’m so used to it.

Do you have a great story to share about your machine (i.e., Found it under the Christmas tree? Dropped it on the kitchen floor? Sewed your fingernail to your zipper?, Got it from your Great Grandma?, etc.!)? We want to hear it!

My machine now contains a number of dressmaking pins that Stella has dropped into it.  The bobbin winding mechanism is on the top, and there is a hole there where it slides across to engage the winding wheel.  It’s the perfect size for pins.  I’ll have to warn the serviceman when I take it in next that there are loads of pins inside it.  Surprisingly, they must have missed all the moving parts.  And because the machine is mechanical, not electronic, it hasn’t created too much havoc.

Would you recommend the machine to others? Why?

This was one of the last Pinnocks made.  It’s an excellent workhorse machine that sews nicely and reliably, and can handle most of what I throw at it.

What factors do you think are important to consider when looking for a new machine?

You really need to think about what type of sewing you do, because that will influence the type of features you need to look for.  Obviously, budget will have an effect.  Good service and a reliable dealer are also very important – you want to be able to get new feet when you need them and have your machine serviced or repaired quickly when necessary.  You need to spend a bit of time sewing with different machines before you purchase too.

Do you have a dream machine?

Yes I do!  I’m currently dreaming of a Bernina or a Husquvarna that has a variety of fully automatic buttonholes, automatic needle up/down, maybe a stitch regulator, a good selection of embroidery stitches, maybe a knee lift, a long throat, excellent lighting …. there are a few machines that could hit the mark, so I’m saving my dollars!  I expect to pay around $2000-$3000 (Australian) to get what I want.  Gulp!

I also have a Janome MyLock 744D I bought two years ago. 

I had loads of trouble with the threads breaking at first, and wasn’t terribly happy.  However, the shop checked it out and re-threaded it and since then we are developing a positive relationship.  I really only use it to sew and finish seams in one hit, or to finish seams I’ve sewn on the Pinnock.  I know that overlockers can be used much more creatively than this, but at the moment it’s just fine this way.

While I’m talking about machines, I also want to mention irons and ironing board covers.  Good ironing equipment makes the world of difference to the quality of your sewing, particularly when making garments.  I’ve just bought my second Fitz Like a Glove ironing board cover.

These are the best ironing board covers I’ve ever used, and I’m only getting a new one because the old one is so grubby from fusibles.  Their service is fantastic.  I’ve got no affiliation with them other than being a satisfied customer, so do check them out if you’re looking for new ironing equipment.

Firstly, thank you all so much for the lovely comments about my afghan/rug/blanket (what IS the best word for this?  The CAL called it an afghan; I’ve always referred to these as rugs, but maybe they are really blankets … anyway, I digress).  I have already started the 2009 afghan, but will save those photos for a later post.  My blog has been a little quiet for the past few days while I’ve been visiting my parents in the country.  We’ve all had a nasty virus, so haven’t managed to do lots of the fun things that we normally do with my parents and the kids, but the crafting has continued on unabated.  Finally I have had the opportunity to play with Mum’s New Toy:

This is the Husqvarna Viking Sapphire 850.  What a lovely machine!  I’ve spent some time learning how to use it (it took me twice as long as usual to make a dress since I had to continually refer to the manual) and I am very impressed with how far sewing machine technology has come in the past twenty years.  Mum’s last machine was circa 1974 and my machine is circa 1989, so to have the joy of automatic needle up/down, pressure sensors, walking feet, programmable stitches, etc etc etc has been quite exciting (if not a little stressful).  I am yet to play with the applique stitches or to program embroidery stitches or text – after all, it is Mum’s machine, not mine! – but am looking forward to finally getting my quilt finished.  Although tonight I’ve had a little too much red wine with dinner, so it may have to wait until my next visit …